Valentino: The First Superstar

by Noel Botham

This is the untold story of Rudolph Valentino, the first sex symbol of the silver screen. An amazing rags–to–riches tale—and one that Valentino himself said was too “wild and improbable” for his public to believe.

Hardcover

First published September 1, 2002

About the author

In 1995, a secret society was formed comprising Britain's foremost thinkers, writers, and artists to explore the world's most bizarre nooks and crannies and to trade and share useless information (or, as founding member Keith Waterhouse, playwright and journalist, would have it, "totally bloody useless")-usually over a pint or two at a local pub. Now, The Useless Information Society shares its findings with Americ an readers in this first of what they threaten will be several volumes.

Noel Botham is charman and founding member of The Useless Information Society. Botham and the rest of his team lurk mostly around London

Reviews

[Brandon Wilkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book provided a lot of info about Valentino's background and upbringing that one wouldn't normally be privy to. The author definitely did his homework. This is a great book.

Valentino was and is an immortal icon. Although he didn't die from drugs or violence, his impact and death at such a young age puts him up there with (and well before) famous deceased like James Dean, Kurt Cobain, Tupac Shakur, River Phoenix and others.

[Matthew Burgess · Rating 5 out of 5]

Was looking for a biography to read, and this one caught my eye at the library. I look for biographies of individuals who everyone has heard about, but through the passage of time, their history has faded. Fascinating and unlikely rise from Italian peasant to American film star. Since he died young, we will never know how the advent of “talkies” would have impacted his career. Entertaining look at the life of a superstar, before the term was coined.

[Charles Schmocker · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book tells the story of Rudolph Valentino’s entire life story from birth. I find this to be full of interesting information and details. Valentino is my favorite actor and this is a very good read! 5 stars I give.

[Angela · Rating 4 out of 5]

Valentino was an uneducated Italian boy who came to America. He was a fascinating character,

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is very, very addicting. My sisters and I were huge Valentino fans growing up and when I saw this book sitting on the shelf at the library I snatched it up fast. And I never could put it down. The guy had a major roller-coaster life. The man who wrote the book apparently spent years of research finding out which Valentino stories were true and which weren't. This book gives you a very good picture of who Rudy really was and for the first time I feel like he makes perfect sense! He was always so myterious before. Now he's real. It's fascinating. Not a whole lot of pictures in this book, though, which is a shame.

[Taylor Woodhouse · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book had me from the start. I had never even heard of Valentino, but straight from the first description of him I was struck. Botham does a fantastic job conveying the glamour that Valentino oozes. This book focuses mainly on Valentino's journey from an Italian peasant to celebrity. It puts great emphasis on the people he met along the way, including a slew of (mostly ill-fated) lovers, and Valentino's personality off the screen as well as on. Overall it easy enough but definitely worth reading regardless of whether or not you like Valentino.

[Donna-Jo Webster]

You've got to wonder about the credibility of an author who writes a non-fiction title peppered with anecdotal stories and direct quotes who provides less bibliographic information than most third graders doing a book report...NONE of the sources for information were quoted or cross-indexed, although the author repeatedly jumps into the story first-person to explain he got the information "from interviews." Don't waste your time...Emily Leider's "Dark Lover" is a MUCH better (and better researched) examination of Valentino's brief life and career.

[Kayla · Rating 1 out of 5]

Enormous number of factual errors throughout the text--even the brief photo section is not immune.